


A Theory of Silence

by ladyflowdi



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-28
Updated: 2007-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyflowdi/pseuds/ladyflowdi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Light came from the corner of his eye, and John let himself look out the windshield, let himself turn his face into this system’s sun as the Jumper slowly rolled towards it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Theory of Silence

It was so quiet. 

The tick of machinery had long stopped, as had the low, almost bone-deep hum of the Jumper. The white around the edges of the windshield glowed dull against the red crystals in the center consol. Even the soft, electrical zaps of the shield encountering minute fragments of wreckage were gone, as if they’d never existed, as if it hadn‘t driven John bat shit _insane_ listening to it for hours. By his very nature John was a quiet person, more inclined towards contemplation than words; his career was comprised of long, solitary flights in his aircraft, just him and the metal under his hands. He, maybe better than anyone, knew that silence could have weight to it. It could do weird things to a person.

He shifted under the cocoon of blankets for the first time in hours, the crinkle of the space blanket loud in the oppressive quiet. His breath, a mist of soft white billows, left a streak of color imprinted on his eyes. After a moment it faded, too, and the sound of the blanket was a distant memory. John thought he could see a pattern, stars and diamonds in the glitter of gray. It seemed right, this, the black void, the silence broken by the quiet murmur of the Jumper’s powered down controls, by his breathing. 

Rodney didn’t make any move that he’d heard, just like he’d been for so long now. John watched the small puffs of air coming from Rodney’s lips and mingled his own with them, a white smudge of JohnandRodney, real against the black ink. When it got really quiet he thought he could hear Rodney’s heart beating against the pale of his skin. Quick those first few days after the screaming and pain, the blood that hadn’t wanted to stop, the botched surgery John had done to get the shrapnel out of him and the sticky black stitches afterward. Rushing blood of fever, and Rodney had spent two turns of the Jumper gasping like there wasn’t enough air in the world for him to swallow. Not now, though; now it was slow and even, the only part of him that still moved as it should, worked as it should. 

He should get up. Check how much power they had left, check what was left of supplies, though he already knew. Their food was gone, and there was just enough water to give to Rodney ever few hours. The medicine was gone, as were the bandages, used up and tacky with blood between their bodies. Check the emergency signal, though he could hear it from where he lay, the low, weird bass-thump of it trembling in the hull.

Light came from the corner of his eye, and John let himself look out the windshield, let himself turn his face into this system’s sun as the Jumper slowly rolled towards it. John didn’t look at the ruins that hid when there was only black as a backdrop. He turned his face into the light, let himself imagine the warmth against his cheek, of when he’d been a little boy on his dad’s shoulders with a dripping ice cream cone rolling down his elbow. He could almost hear it, the happy sounds of kids playing, his mom, so often dull in his memory now vibrant as the last day he’d seen her. He could smell her perfume when she reached up with a napkin to wipe his arm, his dad’s neck where the sticky strawberry ice cream was smeared. He felt her love like the sun shining on him.

“Turn number eight.” He refused to let himself think how many hours and days had passed. “It’s pretty incredible. I wish you could see it. You’d bitch about radiation and sun glare and demand me find the sunblock which you _did so_ leave back on Atlantis, no matter how much you refute the fact.” 

He stared at Rodney, caught in the wash of gold from that sun. Even washed out, even with his skin waxy and his eyelids blue, he was beautiful. John could count his eyelashes, could see Rodney in the almost invisible crow’s feet around his eyes, could trace the slash of his mouth with his fingertip, the rasp of stubble and beard so loud. John had never stayed the night with him, and now, right now, it seemed so pointless. “All those times. You pretend it didn’t hurt, but I know you, Rodney. I can read you like the back of my hand. That pisses me off so much sometimes, how open you are about everything without even realizing it. You never got that it’s you and me, Rodney. Just the two of us. Always has been.”

Rodney didn’t answer, his heart beating under John’s hand, but John hadn’t expected him to. He couldn’t pretend to know what Rodney would say to that. He had a way of surprising him that was nerve wracking; twisting the game up by saying something so incredible that it left John reeling, furious and so damn grateful all at once. He was the only person John had ever given that kind of power to, the only one who could light John up and bring him to his knees with a single word.

John closed his eyes and nosed in close to the hollow of Rodney‘s throat as the sun disappeared around the left edge of the windshield, until his pulse point fluttered against John’s cheek. 

The Jumper kept turning, taking the light, and John thought of wide open fields, big spaces and bright sunshine, and Rodney, bitching and smiling with his crooked mouth.


End file.
